Hillary Clinton Picks a Doomed Fight With Americans Over Guns

"Yesterday, once again, this time horrifically on live television," says Hillary Clinton in a video on her presidential campaign website, "we saw the terrible consequences of gun violence." As it turns out, she's not talking about civilian deaths from drone strikes or bombing raids on hospitals by the U.S. government, but instead about a criminal shooting spree in the United States. Sure enough, the Washington Post pointed out last week that one of Clinton's signature issues heading into the general election is tightening restrictions on the ownership and use of guns by Americans.

That's a tall order in a country where gun ownership for recreational shooting and self-defense is wildly popular. Nobody knows for sure, but the best estimate is that there are north of 300 million firearms in private hands in this country. The ownership of those weapons is closely intermingled with the concept of personal liberty and resistance to abusive government in the minds of a great many Americans, as documented by scholars who both approve and disapprove of that association. Unsurprisingly, federal lawmakers from both major parties are hesitant to wade into the issue, either because they share the aversion to restrictive gun laws, or because they're leery of voters who do, and who are wont to collect scalps on election day. Just last November, analysts attributed aggressive advocacy of gun control as the key to Democratic losses in Virginia's legislative races.

As I indicated, I think the individual right to own firearms was assumed, and was not among the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights. That this is the case may be felt by reading the Federalist Papers, with special consideration for the various scenarios considered for contention among the states, as established at that time.

The tenor of these is very much a "Wild West" scenario, and the arguments presented are based on the idea that a strong union is required to prevent absolute mayhem among these states. The reassurance is given, in The Federalist 9, that:

The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.

So, I'm just saying that the idea of a federal government empowered to DISARM the entire populace was very far outside the boundaries of the thinking of the Founders.

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